


Big Brother Activity Coloring Book For Kids Ages 2-6

by DJClawson



Series: Theodore Nelson's Adventures in Sharing a Workspace [37]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Matt isn't in this I just know that some people search A03 with the Matt Murdock tag, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:01:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27128275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/pseuds/DJClawson
Summary: Theo always wanted a little brother.This can be read as part of the series or as a stand-alone story.
Series: Theodore Nelson's Adventures in Sharing a Workspace [37]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1202407
Comments: 18
Kudos: 27





	Big Brother Activity Coloring Book For Kids Ages 2-6

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to LachesisMeg, who can somehow still concentrate on editing this nonsense during a pandemic.
> 
> If anyone's got any prompts, throw 'em my way. Otherwise I'm running a little dry these days.

Age 6

“Theodore,” his mother said as she wound the sewing tape around his chest and under his arms, “how would you feel about having a brother?”

He was standing on the chair in the kitchen so she could get the measurements for the vest he needed for the school play. His teacher said it didn’t have to be a big project, but they already had a tie and some glasses from a long-dead relative they found in the guest room and he wanted to look good if he was going to be the best President the United States ever had, though to be honest, he didn’t know a lot about the other Presidents. Lincoln was the one with the hat and Washington was the one with the teeth and the tree. His mother said if she made him something and he made sure not to spill anything on it, he could use it as a Halloween costume.

“Like an older brother, like Duncan, or a younger brother?” he asked. He didn't really like Duncan, even though he knew not to say that.

“A baby brother.” When she finished, she smoothed out his shirt and straightened the collar. She always said he should be more careful with his clothes. 

Theo went wide-eyed and said, “When? Can I have him now, or do I have to wait for Christmas?”

His mother smiled. “He wouldn’t be yours. He would be  _ ours _ . A member of our family. And he would come in about three months.”

“Three months?!” He liked standing on the chair because it wasn’t a place he was normally allowed to be and now he was the same height as his mother. It made him feel tall. “I don’t wanna wait three months! That’s forever! Can we go get him  _ now? _ ”

“No, sweetie.” She kissed him on the cheek. Yuck. “We have to wait. But we can start doing things, like getting the guest room ready.”

“He can sleep in my room!” Theo volunteered. His mother had to practically haul him down from off furniture. “Mom, please, can he sleep in my room? Can we get a bunk bed? If he doesn’t like the top, I’ll take the top. And can I name him?”

“We’ll certainly listen to your suggestions,” she said. “But no, he’ll be a baby. Babies sleep in cribs and they cry at night. You wouldn’t be able to sleep.”

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t cry,” he said. He had no idea how he would do this, but three months was a long time to figure it out.

“Oh, can you stop babies from crying? Because you certainly didn’t stop yourself.” She played with his hair. It was freshly cut and he hated getting it cut. “You were quite a screamer.”

“I don’t remember.”

“You were too young to remember, but you were. But we loved you anyway. And we’re going to love your brother just like we loved you,” his mother said. “And Uncle Timmy and Aunt Jeanie are going to tell Duncan and Andy tonight. You can see them after.”

“But I wanna be the one to tell them!”

“This is a special announcement,” his mother insisted, “and it has to be done right.”

He had to wait all the way through dinner before he was allowed to go over to the other apartment. They all went over, and the adults shared drinks in the kitchen and the kids sat in the living room, too excited to play with Andy’s Hot Wheels. Andy was going to have a costume too but it was just a jacket and a special kind of tie and Aunt Jeanie was going to use a makeup pencil to give him a fake beard. Theo didn’t remember the name of that President, only that he was a general in one of the wars before he was President, and that was what was special about him. 

“Where do you go to get your brother? Do they bring him to the house?” Andy asked. 

“No, dummy,” Duncan said. “They give them to moms at the hospital. You go and say you’re a mom, and they give you your baby.”

“What if they give you the wrong baby?”

Duncan shrugged. “I think it has to do with something the mom has to eat ahead of time. So her stomach gets real big.”

Mom didn’t look big to Theo, but three months was a long time. “Pop said I can choose the wall paper for the guest room,” Theo announced proudly. “Because it’ll be his room. My brother’s room.”

“But the bed in there is so big,” Andy said.

“Babies sleep in cribs,” Duncan pointed out. “You used to sleep in a crib. You don’t remember it?”

Andy shook his head. Theo was sure he knew what a crib was, but he couldn’t remember being in one. 

“What are they going to call him?” Duncan asked. 

“I asked if I could pick the name and they said no, it’ll be a surprise.” 

“They have to go to church to name the baby,” Duncan announced. He had the authority of being older and knowing more than them. “You go there and the priest puts holy water on his head and then he gets a name.”

“Why does he do that?”

“I dunno. Maybe babies are dirty,” Duncan said. Even when he didn’t know something, he would always try to figure it out. Theo didn’t point out when he was wrong. 

It was the longest three months of Theo’s life. Uncle Timmy came over to help his father assemble a crib, and Theo picked baseball wallpaper, and put some of his toys in the room, the ones he was done with, so his brother could have them. And his parents said he was really good in the school play, even though he still didn’t know what a “bull moose” was. Grandma gave him a wooden statue of a moose from her trip to Boston to see Mom’s relatives that didn’t live in New York. She said it wasn’t really a toy but he played with it anyway.

His mother kept insisting she didn’t know when the baby was coming, and that she had to sit by the phone and wait, and one night she got a call very late and Theo was sent to sleep at Andy’s and they promised to come get him first thing in the morning. His dad did, looking happier than Theo had ever seen him, even when he was drunk, and Uncle Timmy hugged him and slapped him on the back.

“Come on, Teddy,” his father said. “Let’s go meet your brother.”

Theo had never been to a hospital before. It was a little cold and confusing and when they got to the room where his mom was sitting next to the bed, they said that the baby would be right back, he just needed some time “under the lights.”

“Theodore,” his mother said, beckoning him to the bedside with her extra formal voice. “This is Rose. She did us a favor by helping us get your brother. What do we say when someone does something nice for us?”

“Thank you.” He looked up at Rose. She looked sleepy, and smiled a little but didn’t respond.

“Look who’s here!” his father interrupted as the nurse wheeled in a plastic bin. Dad picked up the little bundle from inside it and brought it over, and Theo could see a little face, like a doll’s, but redder. “Ted, meet your brother Franklin.”

Theo froze up. Didn’t the priest have to give the name? Why was his brother so small? Was he even alive? His eyes were closed and he didn’t have any hair. Theo thought his brother would just look like him. 

“Don’t be scared,” his mother said, standing up to join him and putting a hand on his shoulder. “That’s what all babies look like when they’re born. Here.” She reached into the blanket and pulled out a tiny hand. The skin was pink and wrinkled. “Give him your finger.”

Theo didn’t know why she said that, but he knew better than to disobey his mother, so he held out his forefinger so it touched the baby’s hand and it curled its tiny fingers around his. 

“They can’t talk or walk yet, but babies like to grab things,” his mother told him. “You’re holding your brother’s hand. Be gentle - babies are very fragile.”

The baby made a little sound, like rattling in the back of his throat, but didn’t open his eyes. 

“Hi Franklin,” Theo said. “I’m your brother.” He added, “We’re gonna be best friends.”

  
  


Age 9

“Mooooom!” Theo shouted. “Foggy’s crying again!”

His mother eyed him suspiciously from the kitchen. “What did you do?”

“Nothing!”

“Are you sure? Because I’m sure he didn’t start crying in the middle of his nap.”

She had him there. He looked at his feet. “I was looking for some legos.”

“Theodore Nelson,” she said as she loomed over him, even though she couldn’t do that very easily anymore. “What did I say about letting your brother near your legos? Or any of your small toys?”

“That I can’t let him have them because he’s gonna try to eat them,” Theo recited. “It’s not my fault that he tries to eat everything! And he’s really fast.”

“You’re older and your legs are longer,” she told him, “so you can be faster.” She went to go check on Foggy, and probably make sure he didn’t swallow anything, but he never swallowed; he just spit them out. Except for that one time that he did and they had to go to the hospital, and the doctor said it was a small enough piece and he would be fine, and Theo got a lecture the whole way home about leaving his lego sets around. Theo didn’t understand why  _ he _ was in trouble -  _ he _ wasn’t the one trying to stick plastic in his mouth or his nose.

Foggy calmed down very quickly. Mom didn’t even have to give him a pickle, which she had to do a lot. She told Theo to check everywhere in Foggy’s room to make sure there weren't any stray pieces of any sets of anything but otherwise, Theo wasn’t punished. He did have to clean his room though, so he could say he knew where everything was, and put on his nice sweater for Sunday dinner, because even though only Mom went to church anymore, it was still Sunday dinner. 

Mrs. Mahoney arrived with Brett and a pie. She made really good pies. While they finished warming things up, Theo got out of setting the table because his assigned duty was to sit on the couch and make sure Foggy and Brett didn’t hurt each other while they were running around. Brett was less talkative than Foggy and more polite, so the bumps and scrapes were accidental. Brett was still wearing a little pin-on tie from church. 

Foggy ran over to Theo for whatever reason got in his head, but Theo stretched out his foot and pressed it against Foggy’s head so Foggy didn’t ram into him by accident. Foggy was fast but he was also predictable.

“Can we play with your legos?”

“No.”

“Can we play with your dolls?”

“They’re not dolls,” Theo said. They were toys. They just happened to be stuffed animals and very, very old and Theo knew he should probably get rid of them but he just couldn’t. “You have your own.”

“Brett wants to play with your toys,” Foggy said, a very clear lie. Brett was happy with the Duplo blocks. 

“I don’t think he does.”

Foggy was about to start wailing - Theo saw the signs - but Mom called them over just in time, and it was Theo’s job to lift Foggy into his booster seat, or at least try. Foggy was getting bigger. He used to be so easy to carry.

Mom made a fresh turkey even when it wasn’t Thanksgiving if they got a good deal on a bird. She put it in the oven and Pop took it out and carved it. He called Theo over to the kitchen counter, holding not the biggest knife they had, but one of the larger ones. 

“Do you want to help out your old man?” Pop said.

“Eddie! He’s not old enough” his mom said, which was enough to make Theo really want to do it.

“Yeah, Pop,” he said, and his father put his hand over the handle and guided it to cut off just a small piece, even though his father never took his hand off the knife. It wasn’t as cool as it looked but at least he got to do it.

“You gonna be a butcher like your father?” Mrs. Mahoney said when Theo sat down at the table.

“No, Mrs. Mahoney,” he replied. “Foggy’s gonna be the butcher. I’m gonna go to space!”

  
  


Age 16

When Theo was called into the dining room, his parents were both seated at the table. They had something to tell him. He tried to think of anything he’d done wrong recently, but couldn’t. 

“How would you like it if you had the apartment to yourself this summer?” his mother said. “Foggy will be away for six weeks. You won’t have to babysit him. You can go out with your friends instead.”

He knew what she was trying to say. They’d been talking about the theater camp thing for days now, always when they thought he couldn’t hear, but it wasn’t a big apartment. They didn’t want him to know about yet another scholarship for Foggy. He didn’t like being talked down to. “I didn’t get to go to camp,” he pointed out. He did used to go to the day camp at the Y, but that didn’t count. 

“Space camp is very expensive - “ his father began.

“And you couldn’t find someone to pay for it, but some old rich guy is willing to send Foggy to theater camp? For the whole  _ summer _ ?” When his mother opened her mouth to speak, Theo interrupted her, too. “It’s because of the testing and the special classes and the Saturday school program. It’s because Foggy is smarter than me. Just say it and be done with it.”

“Theo - “

“ _ Say it. _ ”

“ _ Theodore! _ ” This time, his mother was harsh. There was a ferocity in her voice that he couldn’t remember the last time he heard. It was so loud that they all froze, even her, and the room was so silent they could hear the cars passing by on the street. An ambulance went by before anyone said anything. 

His parents looked at each other before Mom turned back to him and looked him straight in the eyes. “I want you to listen to me. You’re very smart. You’ve always been at the top of your class and there’s a reason your report cards have been on the fridge since first grade. You’re smarter than either of us, that’s for sure. And I’m your mother and I know that you’re just as smart as your brother. You’re certainly more sensible than him.” She took a deep breath. “Foggy’s had opportunities because he got lucky. Because the system isn’t fair. It doesn’t give the same things to everybody. You know that. And I swear, we have always tried to give you every possible thing we could give you. We know you’re too smart for this place, and the shop, and you’re going to go to college, and go on to be a great scientist. And Foggy, as much as he likes the food, isn’t fit to work the counter, either. He’s going to do his own thing. You’re both brilliant and you’re both going to succeed and we’re going to be equally proud of both of you.” She pulled on his cheeks. She hadn’t done that in years. “ _ Both of you _ . Do you believe me?”

He didn’t believe everything she said, but ... she was his mom, and she did her best, and Pop did his best, and he knew that. “Yeah, Mom. I believe you.” 

He didn’t really believe her, but it was the right thing to say. Sometimes it was just better to say the right thing to Mom and be done with it. She hugged him tightly and told him they loved him, and he returned to his room and put his music on as loud as his walkman would go so he didn’t have to hear them anymore.

He didn’t hear Foggy come in, however long it was, until Foggy tapped him on the shoulder.

“Shit,” he said. “What did I say about knocking? You gotta knock!”

“You didn’t hear me,” Foggy said. Which, for once, was reasonable. He didn’t have an eager look on his face like he wanted something, so Theo wasn’t sure why he was standing there. Theo leaned back in his chair and waited for Foggy to speak.

Foggy looked at the floor and said, “If you don’t want me to go to camp, I won’t.”

“What? What makes you think that?” Because Theo forgot all the time that Foggy was a good listener, too, and their rooms were both close to the kitchen. “You can go to dumbass theater camp if you want to. I don’t care.”

“It’s not fair that I get to go to camp and you don’t. You said so.”

“No, I didn’t,” he lied.

“I know so,” Foggy insisted. “It’s true. If Mom and Dad are going to let me do something cool for the summer, you should get to do something you want to do. I can’t go and just leave you here.”

“Trust me, I do not want to go camp with a bunch of little kids,” Theo said. 

“You know what I mean.”

Theo sighed. Foggy was really smart. He was also really sweet. “Look, if you want to go to camp, you should go. You shouldn’t stay back because you feel bad for me. I never wanted to go to theater camp and if I had gotten in I wouldn’t have gone. So don’t feel bad about it. Go and learn lines and put on costumes and do whatever other stupid things they do at sleepaway camps. You can make it up to me when you become a rich, famous actor. Buy me a nice computer or something.”

“I want to be a lawyer,” Foggy said, because that was always what he said when someone suggested he do anything else with his life. Theo had no idea  _ why _ Foggy wanted to be lawyer, because Foggy never explained it, but man, he sure had his heart set on it. “I want to be a judge and pass a law that everybody gets to go to camp.”

“I hope you do,” Theo said. “Look, Foggs, go to camp. Have fun. I’ll be happier if you do than if you sit at home and mope.”

Foggy’s face perked up. “Are you sure?”

“You have my permission.” 

Foggy looked so relieved. “Thanks, Theo. You’re the best!” He darted out of there, probably to announce that he was going to camp to their parents.

“You’re G-ddamn right I am,” Theo said and put his headphones back on.

  
  


Age 23

Even though Theo no longer lived at home, he was still very aware of when the mail came. Around two in the afternoon, his mother would start getting antsy as they entered the range of when the mail carrier might show up. His father would bury himself in his work, hacking away at something to distract himself, and Theo worked the register while Mom puttered about, trying to busy herself until the the mailwoman walked by to go up to their apartment.

“Just go, Mom,” Theo told her, as if she needed his permission. 

Today though, she reappeared five minutes later bearing a package. “It’s  _ Columbia. _ ” She set it down on the counter. “Harvard’s just a little envelope, but who cares about Harvard?”

“Screw Harvard,” his father said, wiping his hands as he emerged from the back. 

Not that they could do anything but stare at the envelope. Foggy was still at school, but it was safe to assume that Columbia didn’t waste the paper and postage on a heavy booklet to just say “No.” The university wanted to tell Franklin P. Nelson something pretty important. 

The only question that remained was the crucial financial aid package, if there was one, and they couldn’t tell that from the outside. His parents surely had told Foggy that financial aid would be a factor, but promised to take out loans all the same to make it happen. It was what they proposed to Theo, when the letter from MIT came with a sizeable tuition bill. They said they would find a way and they would have, but the shop was barely surviving at the time. While Theo never had much of a head for the ins and outs of the butchery market, he did understand how interest rates worked, so when he got a full ride at Brooklyn College, he took it. It was undoubtedly the smartest financial decision of his life, especially looking at it now, after flaming out so spectacularly at a real career. He didn’t regret it.

Still, though. Foggy wouldn’t make the same decision. So Theo prayed to G-d (in a very figurative sense) that he wouldn’t have to.

Foggy usually came into the shop instead of going straight home since that was where he could find everyone - and he was usually hungry. When he came in, their parents were in the back, so Theo just gestured over his shoulder and said, “Go on and see how you did, smartass.”

Foggy grinned and ran around the counter and into the back, and Theo followed him, and they all celebrated together when Foggy announced that yes, Columbia wanted him in their new undergraduate class - and yes, there would be aid from the school. If he wanted to be a lawyer, he would still have to find a way to pay for that himself, but that was years off, and despite Foggy’s insistence, his dreams could change. Foggy ran upstairs to start calling people, and after they closed out the work day, they celebrated with the good booze Uncle Timmy sent them for Christmas. Foggy couldn’t quite handle his liquor yet, which was why he could only have one glass, and Theo made fun of him for being a lightweight and a nerd, because that was what older brothers were supposed to do. 

“I could save money by living at home,” Foggy said later, when their parents had gone to their room, and Theo stayed late to keep drinking a little bit and spend this time with Foggy. 

“No. Absolutely do not do that,” Theo said. “Go to the dorms and have the time of your fuckin’ life. Get drunk. Smoke weed. Just stay away from uppers, man. They’re not worth it.” He didn’t add,  _ Get laid _ because he didn’t want to imagine Foggy ever doing that, but he was sure at least  _ someone _ in their family had money riding on Foggy coming out at some point, and college was the place to do it.

(And because Foggy didn’t know how to clear the search history on their family computer, Theo knew that was a bad bet.)

“You did work in college, right?” Foggy asked. 

“Yeah, of course I fuckin’ worked in college. I needed to keep my GPA up like all of the scholarship kids. But I had fun, too.”

“You didn’t talk about it.”

“Yeah, um, when you get to college, you should be having the kind of fun that you don’t tell your parents about when you come home,” Theo told him. “Not the  _ super _ illegal kind, but fun. You worked hard for it. You deserve it.” Foggy did, after all, spend considerably less of his high school experience stoned than Theo. “You’re gonna be working for the rest of your life. So relax and have fun.”

“I’m gonna need good grades to get into law school.”

Foggy wasn’t being contradictory; he was just nervous. Maybe the reality of moving out of his childhood home and going to an Ivy League college where everyone would be as smart as him was making him nervous. Theo could understand that. It wasn’t like he had made it beyond Brooklyn. 

“You’ve always had good grades,” Theo said, slapping him on the back in the way that Foggy did not like. So maybe he was a little drunk. Just enough to be comfortably so. “You’re gonna do great. You deserve everything good that’s coming to you. And a lot’s coming to you.” He added, “You’re my baby brother. You were always going to do great.”

Foggy was beaming at that but he still said, “I’m not a baby.”

“Then go out and prove it,” Theo said. “Get out of here. Make something with your life. You said you didn’t want to be a butcher. Here’s your chance.” He nudged him. “I believe in you, you brilliant son of a bitch.”

Foggy hugged him. The liquor sloshing around Theo’s stomach was less than thrilled at the surprise, but Theo didn’t pull back. He never pulled away from Foggy. 

He was proud of him.

Age 36

The shop was eerily quite. It was closed, yes, but Theo was not used to being so alone. He did often stay late to clean up and finish the butchering after pushing his parents out the door, but now that they were in Florida, he didn’t even have to do that. Nelson and Murduck and Page wasn’t open yet, with only two boxes and an uninstalled braille printer on the table in the backroom. They would need more space, chairs, etc. Theo got the feeling that they were still sorting themselves out after their abrupt decision to reform the firm that had crashed and burned so spectacularly that none of them would talk about it, even when asked directly. Their enthusiasm was cut by tension and nerves - new business ventures were always scary, especially when two of them (Foggy and Karen) had both either lost or walked away from their more stable employment.

Theo wasn’t surprised when Foggy knocked on the front door. He still didn’t have a key to the side door because Theo kept forgetting to copy it. He was carrying another box of files. 

“If it isn’t my favorite brother,” Foggy said.

“Oh, so that’s how hungry you are?” Theo had finished the register and was packing up himself, but Foggy was his brother. “The corned beef is good. Best we’ve had in a while.”

“You don’t have to make it for me.”

“Nelson’s Fine Meats holds itself to a higher standard than an unbalanced pile of meat on the wrong bread,” Theo said with a smile, and set the liquor on the table with glasses and made the sandwich. Foggy shouldn’t have to eat alone, and Theo had a salad in the fridge that he’d intended to eat at home.

They sat down to their unexpected family dinner and traded small talk about how Mom and Dad were doing in their hunt for a place and when the firm website would be up and running again. 

“You don’t mind being on your own here?” Foggy nodded to the empty room.

“I’ve been pushing Mom and Dad to go home earlier for so long, it’s nice to not have to worry about that. And I have the day help. Eventually I’ll have to make new hires. When I can afford them. Until then, I can hold things down.”

Foggy looked down at his empty plate (Foggy always left a clean plate), gripping the glass in one hand. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Yeah?” Theo hoped it was not more bad news, but you never knew these days. 

“It’s not - it’s not anything bad.” Foggy took a deep breath. “I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?”

“For my crappy behavior over this Fisk thing. You were right. He did target you guys because he knew how to get to me. But I wasn’t thinking clearly - I was scared. When Fisk got out of jail, I just assumed he would send someone to kill me. That it would be that easy. But no, of course not, he’s Fisk. He made plans to make me do whatever he wanted me to do. He knows people’s weak spots, and you’re my weak spot. Mom and Dad are my weak spot. He went after my family because he was smart and that frightened me. So I shouldn’t have come down so hard on you about the loans, and I’m sorry.”

Theo swallowed. “You were right, too. It was fraud and we knew it. We just thought - you know, it was an acceptable amount of fraud for a business.”

“Our whole family is caught up in this shop and you were going to lose it. Mom and Dad were going to lose everything. So yes, it was fraud, but because I haven’t been involved, I can’t say I wouldn’t have made the same decision. And I should have been more involved. I should have made it so you felt like you could come to me.”

“You may dress like a fancy-ass politician, but we know you have debts. You have your own problems.”

“None of them were too important for this. Theo - I want you to know that in the future, if you need help, you can come to me. It doesn’t matter if I have the money or my student loans are due. We can make it work.”

Theo shook his head. “You already did enough for me with the deal with the prosecutor. I know that was not something you like to do.”

“Lawyers cut deals all the time,” Foggy assured him. “I’m never going to be too big and important for this family. I may be a little full of myself sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care. Promise me you’ll come to me if you need help.”

Theo could tell Foggy desperately wanted him to promise, even if it might not play out that way. Foggy was building a new firm on the ruins of an old one not known for making money, and Theo needed to prove he could run his own place. But he said, “Yeah, I promise.”

Foggy stood up, which only meant one thing - a hug. “Come on. Bring it in.”

“You’re gonna crush me one of these days,” Theo said as they embraced.

“You’re the one with all of the muscle. If I succeed, it means your bones are way too brittle.” He gave him a fake punch to the chest. “Gotta get some meat on those bones. Only one way to do it.”

“But would I still be the most handsome brother?” Theo grinned not just in relief, but with the kind of joy that only came when Foggy emanated happiness like he was handing out candy. 

His brother was back.

The End


End file.
